Traditional LANs were designed for file and printer sharing within a limited geographic area, such as a single building, with the evolution of technologies including the requirement to transfer High-Definition Imaging, Full-Motion Video, Audio and IP Telephony the use of legacy concentrators such as hubs is no longer viable.
The use of switching technology allows for the micro segmentation of networks providing the ability for multiple contiguous conversations in addition to Full Duplex operation, greatly improving bandwidth and performance.
DIS offer a full range of switching solutions from 10Mbps to 10Gbps, based on Cisco, 3Com, HP, D-Link and Linksys hardware. With installations including switching solutions from Layer 2 to Layer 4.
Layer 2 Switching
Layer 2 Switching is hardware based, using the Media Access Control (MAC) address of the network interface card to filter the traffic thus reducing the collision domain size. Switches use application specific integrated circuits to build and maintain filter tables allowing providing the following benefits;
- Wire speed data transfer
- High speed backbone connections
- Low latency
- Low port cost
Layer 3 Switching
Layer 3 Switching compliments Layer 2 switching by looking deeper at the data being transferred, and basing the forwarding decision on not only the host address but also the network section of the destination device.
Additional filters can also be applied to limit the distribution of data based on access control lists, ensuring optimal usage of available bandwidth and securing the distribution of information. Layer 3 switching also allows the connection of multiple network address ranges and allows for the breaking up of broadcast domains. Other benefits include;
- Multicast control
- Optimal path determination
- Traffic management
- Logical (layer 3) addressing
- Security
Layer 4 Switching
Layer 4 switching considers the application being used (for example, Telnet or FTP) giving the option based on administrative decision to influence routing decisions.
